 Good evening, everybody. Someone can affirm this is real life right now. So thank you for joining us. I hear you, Annie. Thank you. A little javessa. I thought it was all frozen. Board of Trustees meeting. No, it doesn't look like they have the audio on at Lincoln. Can you hear us? I was like, I can't hear us. Thanks. But I think that Andrew can hear us, correct? You can hear us. We can't hear you. I'm in a room. Sorry. No, you're good, Annie. Muted or not? Yes, we are muted. Yeah. I almost called them to order. I don't see your cursor. There you go, right there. Now we're good. All right, Zoom world, can you hear us now? Yay, yeah, we can. All right. Well, we just took four actions without you also. I'm just kidding. I'll go ahead and call the meeting for the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees for Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 to order. Thank you all for being here. I know of one agenda addition for tonight. Does anybody have any others? Nothing. I believe our only agenda addition is not on my screen. 5E, to consider a reduction in Planning Commission membership, is no other recommendations for changes or additions. I would entertain a motion to amend the agenda. Yeah, I'll amend the. I'll make a motion to amend the agenda to add the reduction in the size of the Planning Commission to business item 5E. Second that. Thank you, George. Thank you, Dan. Trustee, is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. All right, so I passed unanimously. Thank you. Next, we go into public to be heard. So this is a portion of tonight's meeting, where if there are any members of the public who wish to address the board about something that is not on the agenda, then that was a time to do so. For those of you using Zoom, please go ahead and use the Reactions and Raise Your Hand function. And I will make sure to offer you time to speak to the trustees. And while those of you in the Zoom land are getting ready to put your hands up, if you have any questions, anybody here in the audience? OK, Zoom land, I don't see any hands up. So go ahead and close the public to be heard and move into Business Item 5a, a department head conversation with the man himself, Rick Jones, Public Work Superintendent. Hi, Rick. Hello, how are you? Fantastic, how are you? And Andrew, could I just preface this? Andrew and I had had some conversation. Rick is our guinea pig tonight. But we'd like to start doing at the second meeting of each month a department head conversation. And basically, most of the time, the trustees and the public get to interact with the department heads is when there's an issue or during budget hearings or finance. And there's not typically an opportunity just to say hello and connect and learn about what's happening in the department and with employees and operations and budgets and all those things. So Rick is the first one to go tonight to kind of indulge. This is intended to be a loose conversation of 10 to 15 minutes. He'll be sharing a little bit of what's in the packet. And then it's an opportunity for the trustees to just have a conversation with Rick to learn more about public works and ask him anything else you'd like to ask him. So tonight's our first night. So I'll turn it to Rick. All right. So you guys, any questions or should I read these off, Brad? Or do they read the bullets already? I think they've already read them. I don't know if there's just a couple of things you want to highlight. And then we can move into questions and answer. Sure. Like I said, I think the two big things is a short staff for this winter. That was kind of a bear, but they made it through. And then we've got the new people now. So we're full at public works. So we're going to get those guys trained up and going. And it was real good that Colleen, we put the pressure on her when she first got here. We were down a person. Then we're down another person. So she really had a lot to do with public works. Right off. And I thought that we were usually not this needy. So yeah, that's kind of the big highlights. I guess if you guys want to choose some questions. Yeah. I can imagine that being short staff during the winter is increasingly difficult in and of itself, just given the need for flowering, road maintenance, and all that you all do in the winter. Yeah. It must have been difficult. Yes. We made it through. Everything looked good. So I guess more importantly, and something that I assume is high in the community's minds, are we going to have to rename the Super Sucker 5,000 to the Super Sucker 55,000 or 5,500? Once we see it and how the performance is, maybe we should come up with a name then. City Super Sucker. Ooh. Yeah, it could be. It could be. I see Amber has her hand up. I'm going to go ahead. Well, that's what I was going to ask about because everybody wants to talk about the Super Sucker 5,000. So how's the looking for a new one going, Ricky? Good, yeah. It's in the consent agenda for you guys to approve tonight. So yes, no, we've went through the bid process and we chose the one bidder. And we will memo there for you folks. But yes. So no, we finally got it all nailed down. And all you guys do is put your blessing on it. We can get it on order. And who knows when it will come in with the shortage of everything. What do we do with the old one? That's getting traded in. If it's something you want to buy, you can talk to the winning bidder. I think that would be kind of an interesting thing to see around the village, somebody's personal vehicle driving to work. So there might be some additional bids here. I mean, if somebody can move into it, it might be cheaper than a house. You're not wrong there. No. I'm just saying, does it have an extended cab where you can put a bed in the back? No, it doesn't. You could remove the back of it off and then maybe build something on the back. Like a tree house on the back. Awesome. This is going well. Sorry. No, no, no problem. Oh, yeah. Rick, I just noticed that you, why is the sound in the room on tour? Am I losing? Get like a tinnitus thing. OK. All right. So you're looking at something that will fit in the shop. So in other words, is this a second choice because your first choice wouldn't fit in the shop? Is that what you're saying? It did limit it. It did limit it to some manufacturers because of the height. Yes, try to get into them. We left a whole inch wiggle room to get into the building. So hopefully our next new building will have a little bit taller doors. So we could have had a super sucker, $6,000 or $8,000, but we had to settle for the $5,500. No, this is a very good machine, yes, but yeah. We could add a few more options. Yes. Trust me, is there any other? Raj, go ahead. Yeah, Rick, I guess just quickly, we've talked about the building. You've mentioned the building in the memo. Briefly, what are the few main challenges you're dealing with with your current space? I think you have a platform right now. It'd be good to get that out. What are the issues and what are the main challenges you all deal with on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, fitting the equipment in the shop. As far as we can't put everything in, there's a lot of vehicles that are stored outside to get everything in there. Then of course, the height restriction. We can't pick the bodies up of the dump trucks in the building to grease them and clean them. So those have to be backed outside greased out there. It's not bad during the summer, but these 20 below days, it's not great for the guys, but mainly a big thing would be to get all the equipment in the building so we don't have the backhoe set outside in that 20 below stuff. We've got it plugged in. It has started most times, so we've been good with that, but it's the hydraulics alone and trying to get to move. It's just this difficult equipment. But that's some of the bigger things in. Really needing to upgrade to our break room, no bathrooms. The bathrooms, we only have one. Yeah, it's a 1956 day building. It's done good, it's done real good, but we're outgrowing it with the equipment we're getting. I appreciate your positive spin on that. But totally here, yes. And if I could just expand for a moment, you mentioned, Rick, that it was a 1956, I think you said, state building. It was not a 1956 state office building. It was not a state of the art 1956 state building, but rather a 1956 storage garage. I believe it was the highway garage, yes, for the state, I believe. That's what I'm hearing from some of the, the older gentlemen that I've talked to around town and stuff. So yeah, that's, I believe they've worked out of it for a little while and then the village took it over somehow. I'm not sure how that worked, but yeah, it's worked great for that. But we're just outgrowing it and it's getting old. Right, are the vehicular needs have changed in the decades since the size, the structure. People have changed and the need for a bathroom. Beyond what was there in 1956, yeah. Just wanted to put some of that extra context in for those who have not had the pleasure of going over there and visiting. Yeah, yeah. I, you're right on track there, Andrew. I mean, I feel the same way. You know, I'm more actually more concerned about the human space that where the workers have to, you're kind of going light on that, but I've been over there and it can't be pleasant in the middle of the winter in that really tight space with all the people crowding around. In my mind, that's what really needs to get fixed first, but you haven't had, in all the years when we've been fixing up facilities around the village, you haven't, other than I think of salt shed back a little while ago, you haven't had any upgrades and any improvements for my entire time on the board anyway. Can you, one was, can you think of any improvements or renovations that have happened over there at all? You know, like you said, the salt shed is the only one and you know, that was a, that was a big deal. That was great. The other salt shed was falling down and then what we put up, what we had put up was great. That's gonna last many, many years and we can even add on to that shed, you know, down the road easily. So that was a great thing to get that done if we can just work on that big garage structure and even the little pole barn out back on the sides there, that's in really rough shape. Do you have any other questions for Rick? I do another, I just want to go off in a different angle. You know, one of the things we're talking about tonight later on is we're talking about this, you know, having a park over here and some folks wanted to put flowers over there, you know, increase in number and what, just generally Rick, how much of a burden is it? Maybe it's not a burden at all. Maybe it's a fun thing to do but around the village, places where we have little garden areas, I noticed one of your, someone was out watering trees today. How much of that do you do? And how, is it a burden? Is it, do you need more help? Or if we increase the number of things around the garden spots around the center of the city, I guess I should say, is that gonna pose a problem or how does that work? I don't believe so. No, it's something we can handle. Yeah, we've got Tyler that does our gardens so the really, we pick you the nice, you know, the green thumb stuff, our public works guys aren't the greatest with that. We have, we can water trees, we do that for the tree committee each year, you know, that takes anywhere from two to four hours of enemy trees they put in. It's not a huge deal and yeah, we were working with Harlan the other day and he gave us some cement plan, like a planter type thing. We were working on those, we were getting those fabbed up and I, Nick and Bridget came over to look at them trying to find out what kind of soils we can put in them. So we got them painted up, we got a base in them, we got them movable. So, you know, we got like 17 of those to work on. Yeah, these little project, yeah, we can fit them in. We squeeze them in. If they're starting to be a ton more than it would be, it'd be a big deal. But right now, no, we're good. You keep throwing us until you see me cry and then I'll say, no, that's enough, stop. All right, all right. Okay. All right, good. Anything else? Well, Rick, thank you for being here. Thank you for being our guinea pig in this process. I hope that it was helpful for you. I know personally for me it was, it's useful to always see you and talk with you. So thank you for the opportunity again. No, I appreciate you, I appreciate you too. Thank you. Yeah. Have a good night. Andrew, I know I'm sure you're all aware that Rick is the one who has coined, it's the village way. And he continues to, you know, spread that amongst, especially our new staff, and there's a genuine appreciation for that. And you heard it in his response when you said, can you take on this or do this? I don't really want to see him cry, but I'd be tempted to see how many things you could put on his back before he would because it is his general nature and his departments to just continue to take things on and take them in stride. And I think, you know, Rick's been here a long time, but he develops that in new department heads. I know that both Colleen and Jeff have expressed that appreciation and they've taken on to the term, you know, it's the village way to just do those things and go out of your way. And yes, is generally the answer. Can we do that? Yes. We'll figure it out. And Rick is the leader in the department heads in that sense. So thanks, Rick. No problem. Thank you, Brad, for saying that. Thank you. All right, Rick, enjoy your evening. Great, thanks, you guys too. Thank you. And next on our agenda five, we'll be discussing local option tax revenues use. Yeah, so I'm sure you have been able to read in the memo, but of course you all need to start thinking about how you want to allocate the local option tax. And Jess and I have met and I believe she is here. And we kind of discussed some ways in which and have suggested some ways for you all to consider of how to use the local option tax revenues. Those revenues will start coming in October 1st of this year. And so our first recommendation is that we don't use any of those revenues in the FY24 budget that we wait and allow those actually to accumulate for one year to see what comes in. Estimates have been anywhere from 600 to 750,000 and those are real raw estimates. I'm not even sure of some of the sources of those. So I think our best bet is to not use them in any budget forecast for FY24, let them come in for a year. And then we've kind of broken the money up into five buckets is the way I would term things. Road restoration really seems to be what the Capital Review Committee is already addressing. That capital plan, if you look at it, it's really all about road restoration and it follows along when most water lines and sewer lines are being replaced and those get paid for out of the enterprise funds. But out of the capital fund is where we repair the roads and sidewalks that are above those things that are getting addressed. There may be a few things in there that are not related to that, but that's the general gist of the current capital plan and capital committee's responsibility. And so our suggestion is that there be a pedestrian transportation fund. We've kind of talked about this as a sidewalk fund. We loosened up the parameters to be pedestrian transportation, sidewalks, multi-use paths, walkways, trails, bus stops, crosswalks. And I think you already have the existing infrastructure in terms of the bike walk committee for them to take on this role as a community group to identify and prioritize those things just as the Capital Review Committee does. Rolling stock fund already exists and will continue to be funded through transfers from the general fund. There really is not a great municipal grounds and facilities capital planning budget within the village. And we think it's been absent. And you just talked about Rick's facility and that facility not getting any attention or money over many years. I think it's just lack of planning and I don't think it's anybody's fault. I just think it's the way that things have evolved. And so our recommendation is to be really intentional and specific about creating a fund that supports municipal grounds and facilities and to really get things onto a schedule of when roofs need to be replaced and when those need to replace and buildings painted and upgrades happening. And our suggestion is that there be a Capital Review Committee but it be made up of staff. We actually just formed that committee without this thought in mind. We just had our first quarterly meeting and our recommendation is that that group develops that list and starts to put it on a timeline with estimates. And then the last group is participatory budgeting and you've all had some conversation about this. There's some information in the packet about what that actually means. But basically it means allocating an amount of money and allowing taxpayers to decide how it's utilized. And you put some parameters on it and figure out a system that works for best grass and conjunction and then you have an annual system for allocating that money as determined by taxpayers. So the breakdown that we've suggested and obviously this is all up to your interpretation but these are just suggestions from staff is 65% of the revenue that comes in through the local option tax go to road restoration and municipal grounds and facilities, 20% participatory budgeting and 15% pedestrian transportation. If those numbers are somewhat accurate on the 600,000 front of revenue coming in in the first year that would mean 390,000 in that first bucket, 120 in the second and 90 in the third. So that's the basis for your conversation. Well, it's nice to have the conversation when the presentation is so thorough and so clearly outlined. So thank you, Brad. You're welcome. Raj, did you want to kick it off? Sure, I think this is great. Like Andrew said, I think it's very thorough. It's well thought out, I love planning. I love getting a grip on what's coming, especially on this topic when we're trying to get a good hold on what the city is gonna need over the next 10 or 15 years. I don't have any major issues with any of it. I am a little, I'm wondering, I guess, if with the breakdown between participatory and pedestrian, which I appreciate being all-encompassing. Well, two comments on that, sidewalks. So with the road restoration portion of it, I guess one of my questions is do these projects often include redoing sections of sidewalk or is this strictly generally like grinding and repaving? And I guess part of the answer is probably gonna be we'll use those funds on those projects when it makes sense to team up with the work. But I guess my overall thought when I read this was I think we have a major, major needs for sidewalk specifically. And I'd love to be able to see an analysis of like I know the crew goes out periodically, I don't know if it's annually or semi-annually to grade the roads. I don't know if anybody's done that with sidewalks recently. So before we commit to a formula for the second two, I'd like to see where we are in terms of need because if we are where I think we are, I'd probably wanna switch those or adjust those. Not that I don't believe in participatory budgeting, I absolutely do. But as someone who couldn't bike for five months and did a lot of walking this winter and spring, it's nearly impossible to walk up the sidewalk and West Street for a good portion of the year, period. And that's a major sidewalk thoroughfare. Pearl Street on this side of the fairgrounds towards the fort is miserable if you have a walker, any kind of mobility issue or a wheelchair. So yeah, so I guess my only request is before we, before we perhaps finalize this portioning, maybe we should see kind of an inventory of where we need to get to and what projects need to happen. That's it. Go ahead, Amber. And so the Capital Committee has sidewalk projects specifically and has never distinguished, I think the requirement of the committee was anything above a capital expenditure above $10,000. And so sidewalks are definitely included. Actually, West Street is on the list already. And we've had some initial conversations about it separate. We have a portion of West Street on that list. The other portion of adding West Street to the list but sorry, I don't have the list here in front of me, but I do know that there are several sidewalk portions on there. So when I read through this, I mean, I don't disagree. I think this is a great proposal. The only thing from as the chair of the Capital Committee, I see this as just trying to redefine what the Capital Committee is doing and wanting to make sure that I understood how these two, if we have two or three or four or five lists, how those lists are going to go together and take priority because now we have one list right now. And so I'm a little concerned about adding multiple lists. But that's the only thought that I had as to this. I think it's a great concept. Yeah, I agree with what the Amber and Raj have said as far as sidewalk system we have here in the village. Also, we have Rick Hamlin here and I don't know, Complete Street, I think you call it when you do Summit and being that not only are you just pulling up pavement and you go down and you lay down a barrier, it's a complete street. The other aspect of this road restoration sidewalk issue is the village does not have both sides, street, sidewalks on each side. And what's happening, or at least it's happened in a few places near where I live in the village when the sidewalk is such no repair or whatever you want to call it, they're removing the sidewalk on the side where it's not maintained and we're only having one sidewalk. So that's another issue to address. And Raj, you're very passionate about this, but I hate to see any sidewalks removed but I understand it's difficult to maintain everything. My concern has always been safety and pedestrians, especially the little ones, when they're walking out of the road crossing to get to snow banks and what have you to get to the sidewalk on the other side. See. Yeah, if I can jump in. First of all, I agree that letting this accumulate for one year at least is a good idea because it's a little bit of pie in the sky. We think this is what's gonna be available. We don't really know what's gonna be available. And the other caution you have with this is that it's gonna vary from year to year. So the first year should give us a sense of the range and then we can estimate it a minimum. I mean, some of these projects might be things you don't wanna divide up into little chunks. You might wanna say we wanna let some piece accumulate a half a million dollars and then do the project. But I also agree with Amber. I'm having, we have a big long capital project list and a lot of those are high needs. I know a lot of the sidewalks in Indian acres have been waiting to be redone and rebuilt. And so the lines between these and also what we're doing now seem a little blurry. I think it's a good plan. A lot of thought went into it, but I think I feel like I'm kind of operating in a vacuum, not knowing what some of our most urgent capital needs are. And again, if we just heard for something like the Public Works Department, that's probably well over a million. Even if we divide that up into pieces, it's probably well over a million dollar project. So we're not probably not gonna have that direct local option tax funds towards that. But on the other hand, why not? Why can't you start to make some of those payments? When we have such a high need there, so I just feel like I think this is a good plan, but I think that we probably need a really focused discussion and have a real good sense of our current capital project needs. Things that projects have been waiting five, six, seven years to be done. So we really have a sense of how we want to divvy this money up. I think the only thing that I want to add to this, I appreciate also waiting the year to see what type of money it is that we're gonna be able to utilize. So that way we don't plan too aggressively and then find ourselves later on needing to find other sources of funding or cutting back on a project that we plan on doing. When we talked about this early on, and I can't recall at this point in time whether this was when I was on the Capital Committee or if this was when it was as one of these trustee meetings. But we had talked about a specific sidewalk fund that would be used similar to the Paving Fund where Rick Jones utilizes the study that the CCRBC does which grades the quality of the roads and doing something similar for the quality of the sidewalks. And then that is used for the next five or so years to determine the plan for repairing certain sections of the sidewalk. That then does not need to be something that would go to the Capital Committee doesn't necessarily need to go to the trustees. It's just a part of a revolving budget where Rick and the public works through to know how much linear feet of sidewalk they have to replace within a given year. And I think that that then may help to prevent the need for those larger projects coming into the Capital Committee and having a larger capital expenditure. And correct me if I'm wrong, but there is the intersection though of some of the water lines do go underneath the sidewalks. And so at that point in time, then yes, the sidewalks are being replaced just as a function of replacing that water line. But making sure that those are also well coordinated is something that would just be high on my mind. I'd hate to replace a sidewalk. And then three years later, they get back up and replace the water line. That what you're talking about, it's happened many times over the years on South Street probably recalls when South Street was repaved maybe 15, 20 years ago. Immediately they dug up a section of the water line and it just seems like you get in the road and then it's torn up. In the past, they fixed it with a hump there for a long time. Yeah, so I just say that a capital committee gets done a really good job. One of the things I have to pay for this is how does this pair of projects and to avoid that very stank. And I have to say that this is about what we're just gonna say. I was just saying that since the capital committee has been in play, I don't think we've really done any project where we come back in and dug something up that was just done because one of the rubrics in the matrix that the capital committee uses is how does this project compare other things and are we doing something on the surface where the pipe underneath is two years down is gonna be replaced. So that process I think has worked really well. I mean, the thing that we don't have much control over is utilities that come in. You know, the gas company, the cable company that come in to do work, underground work. And we certainly have had that happen where we've done new work and then they've come in behind it. And so even that we've, before we do a road reconstruction, like last, probably the last major one would have been on the oil street. We contacted all the utilities ahead of time. Got them to come in and bring in conduit and provided it to the contractor. Put it into a future gas process so we don't have to dig up in the street. So we try to coordinate ahead of time to avoid that. So I would have to say that the capital committee process has been very successful that way in terms of coordinating projects and kind of looking at the overall picture and not doing one thing and then having to back up and do it again. So I think that's really a key part of the success of the capital. Amber, I think your hand was up first. I agree with Rick saying there is one of the matrix pieces that we look at is timing and linkages. And so we are clearly looking at those things to make sure we're not going back and redoing what we've already done. There is a current, the trustee see the five year plan but there is a current spreadsheet that has all of the capital projects. The capital committee hasn't met in quite a while. We are discussing regrouping to meet again soon. There really hasn't been any reason to meet because we haven't had any new projects but we do have a potential new project and we do have a vacancy that we need to fill. But I do think it's important if we can get that spreadsheet and even the rubric might be good in the packet for the next meeting. You're muted, Raj. I appreciate the discussion and I appreciate the folding in of the overall pedestrian themes, Brad. Because I think it goes together. I guess the only other thing I'd say is listening to what everybody said and thinking about how the capital committee works. If we're gonna ask BikeWalk to do this, it may be great to maybe either have some folks from capital work with them to get them started on how they work, how they use the rubric, how they score, not because BikeWalk can't come up with their own process but why do that if we've got a process already in place that while it might need modifications seems to work. If it needs modification, they don't need it to be that complex for BikeWalk. But if we can get them together to get them started on that, might save a lot of time and effort. And yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think these are all great thoughts and I guess back up the 15% for the pedestrian transportation. I don't think that that's gonna be significant enough to really replace much of a sidewalk at all. I guess what I was thinking is that it would be kind of what you were talking about, Dan. You know how a sidewalk gets replaced? Maybe the whole thing doesn't need to be replaced but maybe there's a section that's either broken or has shifted and for those of you who walk around or run around town, you can probably identify these. There are just places where you get really big puddles or you get there's no drainage or there's big humps and heaths. And so it maybe doesn't mean that the entire road doesn't need to be replaced but the BikeWalk committee would identify some of those smaller projects. That was kind of the thought about that percentage and where it would go to. But certainly all of this is very flexible and I think this is just a starter conversation and honestly, you all don't have to finalize this information for really until next October and even after that it would be flexible. So I certainly can get that capital spreadsheet and get some information from Ricky and the rubric and continue the conversation. Members of the public, if you have questions, comments, concerns, if you're using Zoom, go ahead, raise your hand and I'll get to those in the room at home. Go ahead, Annie. Sorry, is it appropriate for me to be talking on this a public thing or no? Yeah, comment on this. Thanks, I really, there's a great deal of agility to this that Brad is presenting and I love nothing more than getting work started and I hate nothing more than it not being prepared when it gets started so that it can be done well. So that's kind of like a stuck place that something can get into if it doesn't got the right prep agility, model, force, power, energy and approval and confirmation to go forward. And I'm a little bit just listening about what the capital program review committee, right? That's what the capital committee is that Amber's chair of, right? Yep. That's the Amber, Timothy Daw, Karen Dolan, Steven Shalvicki Jones, Jess Morris on that. And then I'm intrigued about this inner committee that's formed among staff. What I really like about the staff formation, if I'm understanding correctly, am I right that that's what we're talking about? Am I saying this correctly? Yeah. What I really like about that is that I get confused sometimes with committees that carry a lot of weight about decisions that get made and their ability to be agile because they are volunteers with outside jobs and stuff like that, right? And what I really like about this model that has already been formed is that these are people who are at work and whose job it is to get these things done. And that agility is really appealing to me and our agility as a city, I'm starting to say agility so much, our agility as a city now with less people, there's a lot that can be done. And the whole sidewalk and then waiting so long for things to get done makes me crazy. So I would love to see something, either this or something like this get enacted. I would love some kind of dare I not be rude, transparency or reporting back or I guess just what I really want to say is I'd love to know more about what's happening and the decisions being made within that staff committee without being rude. And then I would love for things to actually start happening because really, you know, and I appreciate Amber that I haven't offended you by talking like I did about, yeah, yeah. So I really, really would love to see things start happening and I love that the local option tax is gonna give us that more agility and all that stuff because I want us to be able to move and grow and I'm excited and enthusiastic about it. So I think this is great. And I would love to see how that comes together as part of Bike Walk. We'll take whatever, whatever we can do. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Anybody here? Questions, comments, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Bridget. I heard you loud, so I don't think I need you on this. You ready? Beautiful. I want to put in a plug for participatory budgeting. I really love this idea. I've read a bit about it. I don't know a whole lot about it, but I think it has so many benefits for the community. It's not only beneficial for you all, all of us to hear what people are concerned about what they want to spend money on, but it brings people into the fold who might not otherwise have participated in any kind of a, you know, you have budget. I think nobody comes or they may get upset after that, but this brings people in to have this discussion and I really, really like it. I don't know how we can boost this, how we can make this a reality, but I would love to see a group or whatever we begin exploring this to really do that. Yeah. Thank you, Bridget. Sure. If there's nothing else on this, Brad or Jess, is there anything else that you need from us at this moment in time? No, not at this time, but I do appreciate you calling on Jess. Jess, did you have anything to add? I never really asked you if you wanted to chime in. No, I think the only thing I'll add, and this kind of points to what Annie was commenting on, the staff committee is really forming what we're focusing on primarily right now is just getting kind of that inventory by department so that when we head into the budgeting process, this summer and fall, we will have as much information as we possibly can and having that for the capital committee, having it for the trustees and for the public. We'll move on to business item five C and discuss the one main street pocket part. If Robin's out there, I'll let him introduce the topic, but I do want to, as you all know, Rick Hamlin has already spoken. He's the village engineer and he is in and available to assist to answer questions and Miles Wait, I believe is somewhere out there. They are Miles and Miles is the environmental engineer who has provided all of the data and details so far on the park. So all of your three best resources are in the house to answer all of your questions tonight to help you form at least a short-term plan, hopefully, and identify at least a long-term process of how you want to address this park. But I'll turn it over to Robin. Thanks, Brad. One thing is in the memo, I did contact the CCRPC to see if there were any implications for not moving forward with remediation by September. I spoke to one person or they said they didn't think there was, but they asked me to contact someone else. I have done, but at the time I sent the email out, I guess they were finished for today. We won't find that out. Basically, and you know, Miles can correct me on this, but the more you take out, the more expensive it becomes. There is a limit to what the grant will pay for. They called a cap, corrective action plan, they called a cap because the best model is to cap it. You know, you take out only what you need to cap it and then deeper we go, the more costs. So you can see it. I mean, I'm sure this memo or a previous memo where I give a link to what I consider some of the best examples of pocket parks, which generally are surrounded by buildings unlike this one. So it was Pilly Park. There was one in Boston. I can't remember. There was the one I'm very familiar with. I've mentioned before that was called the Chestnut Street Park. Now it's called the John F. Collins Pocket Park, but they all have elements in common. Chit trees, pavers, benches, water. I think they all have those four things. Pilly Park is lifted higher. The other two are on grid. Miles could speak better this, I'm sure, but that's the general approach from a best practice perspective. But if Miles wants to jump in. Yeah, so, so Robin's right. So the cap is the corrective action plan. And we developed that after it was already determined, we had this concept that there was gonna be very limited disturbance of the soil underneath. The issue with the soil underneath is that when it was road rescue and before that for many, many generations, gas tank, the Pump Island was right in that, along the street or in the middle of where our park. And a soil boring that was done as part of some environmental work revealed very high concentrations of petroleum all the way down to the water table. So we knew, we didn't poke a bunch of holes in there because we knew we weren't gonna be needing to disturb the soil. So we developed this plan to eliminate only the asphalt and the upper six to nine inches of soil in order to provide the sub base that we need for the pavers, whether they're gonna be, we blue stone pavers is what Robin's idea was, whether, so it's gonna be some sort of impervious substance on top of the soil that we leave in place. The contaminated soil, we know it's down there. We are not planning, we didn't plan to remove it. So we do have some grant money that pays for, so the CCRPC ground field grants pays for all the corrective action planning and it plays for the testing and oversight, but it won't actually pay for the implementation of this. So there's no CCRPC money that's going into the construction of the park, the materials you need and all that. And in fact, Robin might forget this, but it doesn't even, it doesn't take care of the soil disposal costs. So when we remove that upper six to nine inches, that's gonna have to go to commentary landfill or treatment facility and there's gonna be a cost to that. And the memo right now is for 40 to 50K for getting rid of that soil. But if we go down deeper, then we are dealing with a lot more soil to get rid of. We'd have to get permission from the state to amend the cap and the state's gonna say, well, we wanna know how much soil is gonna be taking out, how much of it's contaminated and that's gonna mean poking more poles and doing more characterization of what's down there. So it's quite a jump from going to what we minimal disturbance to 69 inches to say, trying to get it to a pristine property that has no limitations. Thank you, Miles, just real quick, George. And thank you, Robin as well. Something that was helpful for me is very clearly seeing that really the only grant fund or the grant fund's use is limited to only the corrective action plan. And as was mentioned, limited to just that, not the implementation of the actual plan in subsequent conversations. I had been under the impression that there was some assistance that we were gonna get through a grant to help actually implement and do some of the remediation. So seeing here that from our last conversation we talked about, if we were to plan for digging two feet or a worst case scenario six feet deep, what are those costs? My understanding is that some of those or significant portion of them would have been covered. Seeing here that that's not at all the case, but instead we're talking to just go two feet deep about $200,000. My understanding is if we went six feet deep we'd be talking about $600,000. That's a significant cost that personally was not something that I had anticipated. And frankly, if we were going to go down that path I think that we would need some significant long-term planning beyond what we had just talked about at our last meeting. So I think that's something for us to very seriously take into consideration as there goes a local option tax almost in its entirety as well as the entire penny on the tax rate. So I think those are important things for us to keep in mind. I will throw one other thing in there though. I don't know if you want to hear this maybe do but when we got the money it was two years ago before the governor Scott put 25 million towards Brownfields and there's so there is and that does cover the cleanup. So there is a pot of money out there if you really wanted to change tax and maybe not even change tax maybe you want to try to get that the cost of the soil disposal taken care of it is possible the grant is still available. I'm not exactly sure how much of that but it's a possibility. Thank you, Miles. I appreciate hearing that. You cut out at one point. So I'm not sure were you did you know how much that grant could be for for an individual project? No, no, but I could easily email the DC project manager and say by the way there's a possibility now that's some additional soil that becomes cost prohibitive to the village to deal with this is there availability for grant money that would cover the soil disposal? So, it's a possibility, it's a possibility. I'd appreciate that that would just be helpful to know if the grants $10,000 versus $100,000 versus a million it certainly depends that could weigh heavily on the conversation. So thank you for that. Okay. Go ahead George. Miles I don't want to put I'm going to ask a kind of a nerdy technical question and I don't want to put you on the spot and you may I may be coming completely out of left field I've read quite a bit about soil remediation for hydrocarbons pollution and other heavy metals and soils and my understanding is that for a lot of tree species to bacteria on the rhizomes around the tree roots break down hydrocarbons and turn them into nutrients for the plants. Is that does that sound something are you familiar with that? Yes. The reason I'm asking is that a lot of this seems to be going forward. We got into the mindset of saying well we want to spend the minimum and we want to cap this and we want to just put up a few trees which maybe is a and we're talking about a short term plan a long term plan and a longer term plan but I just posed the question do we want to have this polluted chunk of soil in the middle of the city in perpetuity or do we want to start thinking of a plan that begins to remediate soil long term? So let's say next year we put in a park that has 10 trees or eight trees but eventually we could get us to the point where you have remediated the soil to the extent that you could do you can remove all the capping and you could do something completely different. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about that or if you have any experience with that? Sure, I got so two points. One is yes, it's called phytoremediation. Trees can remediate petroleum but it's very typically where the very high water table where you got petroleum in the groundwater and they're a pioneer species like birch and poplar that grow quickly but don't have deep, deep roots and they can suck, they can basically evapotranspirate the contaminated groundwater and then expire it. So you can actually treat contaminated groundwater with trees. The old old petroleum that's been there for 30 years aren't gonna be necessarily remediated, right? You do get some rhizome, you do get some of the fungal type of remediation but it's not really ton, it's not significant. It's not like you can clean up that whole place by planting half a dozen trees. The second point is that in this realm of brownfield it's very common to do what's necessary to protect a sensitive receptor. So you do what's necessary to protect people from being exposed to the contamination and it's very common, you leave it behind. We can't clean up everything, you do your best to protect the playground next door to protect the house across the street, protect the wetland down the road. You do all that kind of stuff to protect those sensitive areas but if it's in the middle of an urban area where nobody's drinking the water, there's nobody playing in the dirt, it is a very reasonable solution to just cap it and let it be. So that is the point to know that. Go ahead, Rosh. Yeah, I guess I'm confused. You know, I guess I thought that we weren't looking at a massive change in how deep and how much soil we removed. We simply had an issue with lack of opportunity for input and dislike of the design. And as I looked at it during our last meeting, last discussion and since, honestly the design hasn't changed in years. So I think maybe I'm lost on this but I didn't think that we were dealing with people wanting to take on an exponential amount of more of dirt as opposed to have an opportunity to change the design of the park. And while that might include areas that might have to be deeper for a section of planting, I didn't think it was an overall foot more and a subsequent 100 grand more, whatever it would be. So am I wrong on that? Or because this memo seems to be an argument for continuing with the plan that seems to have been in place for years. Even I think before we, it seems before we started talking about this. When, that's just not my recollection of how the last discussion went. I would say that it does seem that way, Raj, about, I don't wanna put an intent to the memo, but in terms of what we talked about last time, we had talked about better understanding as we were talking about for long-term planning, what the capabilities are and what the potential financial impact would be about the worst case plan of going down six inches throughout the whole area versus two versus a couple holes for trees. So that way we would be able to have some definitions if we wanted to, then for long-term planning, hire a consultant or have a community committee come together to help do that planning or that design process and to help really engage the community. So I think where we are at now really is, do we want to do that? Which I'm gonna just go out there and say, I don't think we do want to go down the path of digging six inches down throughout the entire, redoing the cap to go down six inches throughout the entire area here. I don't think we want to spend $600,000 just to dig six inches let alone that whatever we want to put on top. I guess to be more specific, I'm frustrated that I seem to recall us saying, we're probably gonna have a group that's gonna talk about this in the community. They need to know a baseline of why things are the way they are. And while this memo does address some of that, it also seems to be another argument for leaving the design the way it was, which I think when people out there in the community read it who have expressed interest in or expressed a dislike of the plan, I think it frustrates them. And I guess I'm frustrated too. And again, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but we keep having this conversation and we keep getting the same, essentially the same memo back. This is the only thing that will work. When I recall trying to engage in changing the design, understanding the limitations in a way that wouldn't increase the cost precipitously. So again, I guess I'll stop, I guess I'm confused. Yeah, go ahead. I don't think, I'm not, I don't see this as, I wasn't proposing that we start messing and digging up more soil or something like that. I was just trying to get a sense of long-term planning and what the possibilities are. But it seemed to me that the design that we had that went through Robin and Rick, we got feedback that the community, we got a lot of community feedback that said, well, they didn't like that plan. So we were not gonna go for it with that plan. And so we were back to square one trying to figure out what we were going to do. And then, but basically to remove a, figure out exactly, remove an equivalent amount of soil that was in the plan, but a redesign of what that plan looked like, the elevation of the plan, where the trees were arranged and the benches and so forth. But I wasn't, but and my point was since, but since we've gone back to square one and it looks like we're going to start the committee, start a committee process, I just wanted to get some more parameters about what could happen there. But I'm all in favor. If it erupt to me, I'd go right ahead and start doing the plan that we had in place right away. But it seems to me that the consensus of the board is maybe I'm misunderstanding. Maybe we're both confused, Raj, is that we want to go back and start over again, start a long-term plan over again. Is that what we're saying? Well, Georgia, I wasn't really addressing what you were saying. I thought what you were asking earlier was actually great because it goes to what I think the community needs to understand about this particular project and its limitation. So that really wasn't, that wasn't what I was talking about. I just sort of felt like, yes, I agree with you. I think that's where the board is kind of sitting right now is there are the limitations of the site. There's financial limitations around that. The community wants to have more input. We have to ensure that they understand that even a two or three inch change has significant financial implications and may be prohibitive because of the contamination, but I'll stop. I think that the idea, if you don't mind me saying, I think the idea would be to say, let's fine, let's go and replan the arrangement, the elevation of the plan, but before we do that, let's figure out exactly how much soil can be removed. Before we form a committee, so you give the committee and deliverables and parameters and guidance, how much soil can be removed? We have a timeline so that when will this plan so we don't find ourselves in the same situation next year so that we have a plan, let's say by February 1 of 2023, we're ready to go out to bid, and the committee is also given a budget to work with, and then you mentioned having a consultant, and I think a consultant would be an excellent idea because I think if you're going to have some, if you're gonna have parameters, you're gonna have limitations on what can be put in there, you're gonna have a budget, you're gonna have a timeline, and I think also getting a lot of community ideas and actually designing that, working that into a design, I think landscape design is really, it's a skill, I think it's something that people train for and have to learn about. So I think someone that could take all that and work with the committee to get public input, but to come up with a realistic plan and a realistic timeline, I kind of, that's what I thought we should be doing. What Dan? I like the idea of getting the opinion of the public or people weighing in on how they'd like to see this design. But as you're aware, and we're all aware, more people weighing in, more cooks, it's supposed to be wherever it takes, it just, it gets difficult to stay focused on one plan, everyone's got a different, maybe a twist to it. The other aspect of this, I brought it up in the last meeting when we discussed this, maybe we can go out a hybrid way because if we're gonna cap this, we don't want to get into this precipitous money pit, as it were. Why can't we put some kind of planters, big, you know, above ground, on surface, something that doesn't have leaves that drop off, so something in the pine or the fir, you know, genus or whatever, or a tree, so that you get that barrier that buffer and sound absorption, whatever you get out of it, and maybe some astroturf or something that looks like grass, but can be, because a lot is just gonna have to be lifted and moved out of the way anyways, come winter or whatever needs for, it's a tiny, tiny area. I hear Robin compared it to pocket parks in Boston, New York and around the country, but it's a totally different scale. Then in New York City, you've got little parks when I was working down there in the city yet, and I'd hang out in the town. Just looking at it now, Harold Square, little, I remember sitting out there, meaning those are 20 times the size of what we've got here, so we gotta have a perspective on what we're doing here. Just, I just don't wanna put a whole lot into this and worry about it. I think something that looks nice, people going there and just some kind of retreat or refuge from the harsh pavement and busyness of the traffic, whatever you do. Robin, is that your hand up? It is, yes. It's my left hand. First, I'd like to disabuse Raj of any thought. This is a memo in support of the fast plan. Nothing could be further from the truth. There's nothing, no discussion in this about pergola, arrester and nothing. At the last meeting, we were asked to come up with numbers. They would say, what would happen if we put down long? What happened if we dug deeper? There was this suggestion, I think by George, that it's gonna be a new committee and maybe they should have parameters. I think you just mentioned that about what would be the cost of their decisions. So I went to Miles and asked him to give me ballpark on certain things. And really, this is just his memo or his email to me put into a different form. This is a way to say, well, if we do A, B or C, these are the costs. Simple as that, from my perspective. Thank you, Robin. This is why I'm suggesting that we give parameters and we work backwards. We not just have a deadline where we want everything to go ready to go out to bid, but we come up with a total overall budget. And that budget would have to include, maybe we can get grant money from the state to remove some of the soil, maybe not. But again, the committee could play with that. If we're willing to kick in more money, then we can put in more trees. If we have fewer trees, then we'd have more money to pay for some other aspect of it. So those would be the kinds of things that the committee and a consultant could play with. You'd have that parameter. But I think the board would have to set generally an overall budget for what would be available. And then they could go after grant money, but I wouldn't wanna see us delay this project for the next two or three years because we're writing a grant or we think some new grant program is gonna come down the pike in only a year. So that's all I'm saying. I think we should set parameters and try to get the project done in a timely way. I wanna just switch over and say, because I know we have some folks here in the meantime while we're planning this, because obviously whatever we're planning and whatever's gonna happen isn't gonna happen this summer. And I would like to also say that I met with some folks, we went over there and we wanted to try to, I would like to suggest that we do something right now to sort of tie it in with the city celebration. There's tons of people using that already. All the other properties that we have in the community like this building, the library, certainly Macon Street Park, we landscape any place that we have that is accessible to the public we take care of. Those things, that's not for free. Those things cost money. So I'm saying put an equivalent amount of money and let's try to fix this up right now for the summer while we're coming up with this long-term plan. I think certainly the folks that were living down here would appreciate it. And I think we should approach that with the mindset that we don't necessarily have to have a return on investment when we have a fireworks display or a parade. We don't say what's the return on our investment. So I think fixing that up, putting some planters over there, getting some nice furniture. We had talked at Bridget has done a little bit of research about shade sales and some other things that we could do. But again, probably isn't gonna happen this summer but that's one of the other reasons I was wondering about the hand soil. But I would like to say, I'd like to see this broken into two pieces where we have a long-term plan, which seems to be what we're talking about, but also we have what are we gonna do this summer immediately to try to make this a little bit more accessible and user-friendly. Thank you, Jordan. Before we get into the details of a short-term plan, the thing that I wanted to revisit was from that last conference for the time we talked about this at our last meeting was we really do need to define just how far down we're going to dig as that defines. That would be the biggest decision that we would need to make for this longer-term committee. So please correct me if I'm wrong, Brad or Robin, but I think one of the intents here is to also for us to get some level of consensus on that topic as to how far down are we looking to dig and to see if we can come to that consensus tonight. In my mind, given just what I've seen from the memo with the costs, I think that we do wanna go to that point where we have something along the lines of that original plan where there are some number of trees. I don't care how many, but that ultimately that area is capped with some type of covering on top. It may not be grass, but something that is hard-scape. And then whatever else we do besides the trees are all things that get placed on top of that service, whatever that service shall be. So that then a committee for the long-term would help to be able to plan what do we put on top of that hard-scape area? And how should that look? That's that kind of thing. What are Trustee's thoughts on that? Yeah, well, I for one agree, I think that's the way to go is to figure out just how much soil we're gonna regroup it. That gives a number of it. And I think that the plan that we saw, generally that had about, is that you're saying that had about the right amount that was, I don't know how many trees were planted there. I think it was like seven or eight. Five, okay. That seemed to be a reasonable number and that seemed to be working. So maybe that's one stake in the ground we can place. And I can turn it over for public comment just a moment, I just wanna go around the room for the trustees to see if there's any comments or concerns on that being anybody in the room. Can I ask, I just do have one, I had asked Rick Hamlin because of the issue of shade sails and putting stakes and digging up the ground. And what's possible and what's not possible. And we don't know for something like a shade sale or some kind of a pole or structure over there. I guess it would be similar to putting a tree in. You probably have to dig up an equivalent amount of soil but at some point I would like Rick to address that because some of us have been talking about what can we do in terms of breaking through the pavement and putting anchoring things underneath the pavement. There seems to be some limitations. So in the public to be heard, I'd also like to, if Rick could address that. Raj Amber anything from either of you? No, I think the previous plan, the number of the tree placement number of trees was worked out with the tree committee. I think that part of the plan was pretty well worked out in terms of how much dirt and all of that. So I think that's a good, the way you're suggesting to go forward is good. So yeah, I would love to turn this over then. If there are members of the public who wish to talk on this item, whether it's short term, long term, doesn't matter to me. It's all fair game at this point. And if you don't mind, Rick is pointing over to somebody else, okay? Come on up, Harlan. So I was, I was able to get ahold of some of the documents at miles to supply. And it goes to how much remediation and within some of these documents of the soil excavation management detail. And it's showing, in order to put the blue stone on top, it's showing 12 inches of crushed gravel, 12 inches of dense gravel, three quarter inch leveling course and then a two and a half inch block. So we're looking at two feet, about two feet, three inches to get that. And it gets a little more confusing and then there's a geotextile fabric. And then underneath that is potentially troping contaminated soils. And Vermont Trans 704.06A is referenced. So I would be curious if those sub bases are road grade because we're not actually doing a road. We're doing a sidewalk. So maybe those numbers aren't hard and fast. And then in previous conversations we've had, there's been some discussion, like if we were to grow grass, right? When we were asking us public before, we said, we gotta take soil out and then we have to put soil in and there has been or maybe I misunderstood but I under the impression that there was a certain fabric that is going to go in on top of the potentially contaminated soil. And then new soil would be put on that and those two soils would be separated by this. But as I looked at some of the drawings and the more I start to learn and the more that I read about this and even with what Miles had mentioned earlier where we are doing our best to keep contaminated soils from contact with the public. I'm not seeing a geotextile fabric. It's just a divider so that your coarse gravel mix with your soft gravel and basically mess up your base. But it allows water to transfer through it which means potentially contaminants to transfer through it. And then the tree planting detail. I don't see a geotextile which means we'd be excavating a hole put in the RuPaul land and let the tree grow inside of the contaminated. So I think the only issue is and I would like clarification of this is it's okay to have the soil there although I'd be really interested in the whole division. Like if we didn't want to pump grass in could we just dig down six inches and put new soil on top of that which then creates a barrier between potentially contaminated soil and possibly the public sitting on the grass or does grass growing create a suction that starts to draw those contaminants up into the new soil that we just put in. So these are the types of things that we're trying to plant as part that I'm trying to figure out in my head. From everything that I'm reading our only concern is any soil that we remove needs to be handled properly and disposed of properly. But I'm not seeing where we're going to separate soils. I'm curious about whether or not there's a real barrier that would separate new soil from old soil that would never touch each other or leach into each other. And I'm curious about because we're talking about hard-escaping it. These drawings is that a state road crush gravel, sub-base that we need to put in or can that be less so that we can remediate soilness? And then when we get to the, something Bridget's gonna bring up about wind sails. If we know exactly where those posts are going to go and I would love to be clarified on this, this is my understanding. We would drill a hole that soil would be removed. That hole would be filled with cement. And then when we get up to the hardscape and it's capped at that point, there's no access to potentially contaminated soil at that hole. And it doesn't matter how deep we go, right? So it's 12-inch hole, six feet deep, whatever that cubic feet is of soil that we remove needs to be treated as hazardous material or dealt with. I personally don't see an issue with putting in the sail poles. We could go eight, it's just the amount of cubic feet of dirt that we remove. And then refill with cement to hold that base together. And then we would tap it back to the hard surface of what hurts there. So I don't, I don't see any issues with that, but if they could speak to us about whether or not we're trying to separate soils, or could we pull out six inches of soil and put in six inches of new soil and plant grass without some barrier that literally stops water or any transfer between those two soils, or is that not a possibility? So when we were trying to do the planning, I think this was some of the confusion. And hopefully I've asked the questions correctly to help us all understand what that answers. Thank you, Harlan. Yeah, I'm not an environmental engineer. I will not pretend to be one and would certainly look to Miles to help answer those questions. Sure, those are good questions. So first of all, regarding the two feet. So the DEC, the Vermont DEC has the I rule, which is a guidance document that requires, it says when you're capping contaminated soil and leaving it be, you need 24 inches of clean soil. And then the geotextile is what we call a marker fabric. So that 20 years from now, when some excavators in there to redo that or something or build something new, they're going to get to that fabric and be like, oh, what's this? And then they're going to figure out, oh, we don't want to mess what's below. So there's another component of this, which is we can cap it, but the village is going to have to have an institutional control. And notice the land records that says, in the land records it says, you're not allowed to dig in this below two feet without going through the proper process. So there's two reasons we put that fabric down. It's one, again, in my detail, it's to separate the gravel from the native, but also it's the marker fabric. Does not allow transfer of contaminants water? It's really not, when you cap it, you're basically, and so we are not planning to prevent the water from getting down there. Because we already know that there's groundwater just being monitored here. There's a consultant that's working for Gabe Handy that's doing groundwater testing here. There is no need to basically, I mean, when we do this from an engineering perspective, you put a liner and an underdrain. We definitely don't want to have to do that. So there's no plan to prevent water from getting through the clean into the dirty. That's just because it's being monitored, you don't have to worry about that. That's a whole different thing. Now, back to that detail. It's a standard geotextile that I would use. Standard geotextile. Your first water was installed. It's not a liner, it's not meant to, water goes through and it separates the fines from the coarse grain. Brilliant, that's what it does. And then it provides this notification. And with two feet of new soil, does it still require to be capped? No, so I'll tell you one thing that I've had experience working in Burlington City Hall Park. And that actually, that detail from the paver, I stole from what Du Bois and King provided to City of Burlington. And that's what they constructed at City of Burlington. So, and City of Burlington was funded under the Great Streets. And so there was federal and VTrans funding for that. So it's a very good choice of chance that there could be like an over design in terms of six inches plus six inches. That we might be able to reduce that. And that's something that Rick Hamlin can probably consult on. I'm not a civil engineer, but yes. So if we wanted to have a less than VTrans spec kind of, you know, surface, then we could maybe reduce it. I can tell you that. Okay, and that would be for a sub-basin at my other point. That would be for your sub-basin. And then so if we can reduce the thickness of sub-basin when we can then reduce the cubic feet of soil, we need to come out of there. So that is something to consider. Can we literally take six inches across the top of this park, put six inches in and plant grass in that? Yes. So the City of Burlington worked to deal with DC that they reduced their need for 24 inches to six inches because they knew that if they put in, they raised grade, all their trees would die, they would mess up the stormwater. So that 24 inches that I was talking about is negotiable, say, with the city, with the state. But again, what it is at City of Burlington is that it's six inches of clean soil with a marker fabric below. And I think the language was established turf. So the turf and the six inches alone are gonna prevent the kid who's playing in the park from digging down with his tonka toy and getting to that soil and putting it in his mouth. So the idea is that established turf and the six inches, yeah, it's another area. No matter what the inches is that we put it in at six, eight, 10, anything below that, we're playing with fire, anything above that because we brought new soil in. We can do pretty much whatever we want, grow grass, put rocks, put cement, put bluestone. Exactly, if you want to be able to, yeah. So it's the established turf is part of your protection. Yeah. The grass was a component of how the state was able to reduce it to six inches. Perfect. Thank you. And then to your question about your, hearing your footings for any posts or something, that's a no-brainer. Yeah, you're right. That's the way that I said it. It's not gonna impact it. You're gonna dig a hole so that, and then the other component to this corrective action process is that we would have staff on site. So once the asphalt's removed and they're starting to remove the soil that they need to get their sub-base, we would be screening it with field instruments. So that's petroleum that goes with that pile. That's not that goes over there. Then we test. So the whole volume of soil that has to go away as dirty is somewhat flexible. We don't really know. So that's why that 40 to 50K number is sort of a generic. It could be less than that if there's really, if it doesn't need to be managed. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Harle. Thank you. Really interested in the long-term plans for this park, but after the last meeting, several of us were a little anxious eager to get going on something this year, perhaps. And so we met over at the site, Ireland was there, George, myself, Elaine, Nick and Elise Serta, and we talked a little bit about what we might do this year because we assume that remediation, et cetera, will not proceed this summer. I actually think that's a good idea because you don't want that area ripped up this summer. That's my thing. So we have some ideas. Brad, are you ready for me? I just, at your back and call, Bridget. Yeah. I know it. So the first thing, and I really wanna thank Public Works and EJRP for collaborating on this, collaborating so thoroughly that there's, aside from the shade sales, there's really not a lot to do. Okay, look at those handsome guys. Okay, these are concrete planters that were out in Maple Street Park that they no longer wanted or needed. So they were transported over to our Public Works facility, and one of the guys at Public Works, I can't remember his name, I wish I could, came up with an idea. They were hollow. So he came up with an idea to put a layer of cement in the bottom of them. So this was hardening yesterday when I was there. And maybe you can see that there are also two hooks in the side, which they put those in, which will make it easier to lift them. This is brilliant, right? Then they paint them laryando red. And, and... What, paint them what? I know, isn't that great? What, laryando red? Yeah, that's what Rick Jones calls it, laryando red. So these are ready to go, 17 of them, 17 of them. Could, what we're hoping is to put them, and I'm asking for permission here, I'm not asking for anything more concrete than permission, but they could go all along the main street side and maybe turn the corner a little bit. We did find out today we can't buy any more of them, so we hope that we could buy more and put them down Maple Street, but we'd at least get Main Street and then perhaps a few on the Maple Street side figure out what else to do there. Those are ready to go. We went out to Clawson and a bunch of other places yesterday and found out what kind of soils we'd need, et cetera, et cetera. And, and our proposal is that with a volunteer group, we would put these in place and then plant them and at the same time take care of the area around the food trucks, because that's gotten a little scruffy. So we could at least mow the lawn and do something there around the gazebo and the food truck. So that's, the public has said what they wanted was a little screen, a little screening from the traffic, some shade and some seeding. All right, let's go to seeding, that's a good one. All right, EGRP has some equipment that they're not using and they've offered to let us borrow it until the long-term plan for the park comes to fruition. And they are metal tables with rubber coating and there are, number here. There are six total tables and they're like this. There are four like this and two ADA accessible tables that are rectangular. So there you go. Those can be, this can be done, you know, whenever we, whenever, I mean these can be done. Now for the shade, it's a little more complicated and it's complicated because I'm way over my head in terms of can you, how far down can we dig? But I think I heard from Harlan's questions that we can install posts there without too much trouble. This is what I'm working with a company that George found in New Hampshire for to fabricate the sales. We've made no agreement at all because I didn't know about the posts and I told her I'd get back to her when I had an answer and that their lead time is eight to 12 weeks but this is sort of what we'd envision for that. So that would be shade over the tables and we'd have the concrete planters going around the corner. Yeah, I think that looks great. I remember being at a conference and either actually both DC and Indianapolis where they had sales just like that over some of their playground structures to help keep the kids from getting overheated as they were playing around. And some over the tables, they worked well. They looked all right. Yeah, I mean we can go solid but kind of like the colors and the shapes. There'd be a little sun coming through between but I think that's okay. So we'll see how this comes. We'll see what their quote is and what we think about that once that's done. I have a couple of other ideas if this doesn't come with the exploration but I'm basically asking permission of you all to do this to put the planters out, to plant them and to, Jacob said we can use his water. He might want a little bit of kickback. But we can use his water. I think we can for this year anyway with the help of Tyler at Public Works we can keep it watered with volunteers at Tyler. We can keep it watered and maintained and the picnic tables cleaned and things like that. So, yeah, I'm just asking for permission. Sure, I just want to thank Harlan. The guys over at Public Works for cooperating so quickly on this, getting it done and they're amazed, just amazed. So, yeah, so just ask for permission and you can get sick of that idea. We'll move in on that. Great, thank you for that. Do you have any questions? My only question would be for Rick. Wait, so just a question on the short term. With those sales, is there a way to anchor them where would we have to anchor them into the ground or use some type of concrete putting to hold them down? Yeah, I'd have to see a detail of what they're using for most of the hard time with any size of sunshine. When though, at the end of the poles. So, I'm sure they're typical designs to set them in the ground. If you didn't do that, you'd have to go up. So, is it possible, maybe? One of the problems is, it's sort of like a disaster. It's not. So, obviously, when it's hot, it's off. It's kind of like a pin to it, don't hold it down. With some information from the manufacturer, we could see if they could actually be placed at a specific fabricating time. Locate the base, and that's how it got. I mean, ideally, you would say this, but in the perfect world, go to excavate this soil. That's what people expect once you do it once. Could happen in phases, but we could see it through. It would be a way to leave the asphalt in place, which I agree would probably be the best to take it off of that pile. Because it's not just a number tree. It's exactly where that tree is going to go. So, anything else is sort of lightable. Turns out it's security note. If you want to have water lines and water plants, any surface that you put down. So, let's look at the bluestone. You could reduce the material under the bluestone, but I wouldn't advise it, because it needs to be frost-free material. Otherwise, your bluestone would be frosted. And with bluestone, that would mean, I mean, you can reset it, but you'd be resetting it a little less if you went with a concrete score, saw-cut it in a pattern, where you could certainly do it in a decorative way. And then, you would scale it, because the concrete itself is not that big, and it's dense. So, all the things that the committee should take into account. I think the idea is saying, look, here's 20 cubic yards or 25 cubic yards you get to work with, that we're willing to remove is perfect, because that sets the really nice guidelines to say, what kind of work can we do? I know the tree committee was pretty adamant that on a area that needs to move to a plant, significant trees there is a lot. The area that needs to move to a plant tree, I was quite surprised, but it's a big amount. Here are the nuts. I think it's a really good idea to help. Well, we've got two things going on here with the sails. It looks nice, but my understanding, if we're looking at putting in trees to shade that area, aren't you putting up sails to shade there? Now you're putting the tree to shade there, what do you, I just, the other thing with trees, right? I understand my basic understanding of trees is usually the top of the tree, that whatever the leaves and whatever, where that can be, usually the root system's equal to that, in general terms. Now I don't know how deep they go, but with those placards that we were just looking at, set up, can't they put like systems like I provide-y type things that I see, it's nice to be protected from the sun and have some shade there, but I plant the tree and wait for it to be a buffer for the tree, the traffic and the congestion going by, whether it's pedestrians, when things are motorcycles or what have you, big trucks, I would think we'd want something that we're not gonna wait. So sunshades are a great idea because they will provide the shade immediately. And I can see in a long-term plan that the sunshades are installed, so are the trees probably. And over time, there'll be less of the heat from the sunshades potentially and the trees will grow. I think there's, from the standpoint of sound buffering, you're not gonna get that much vegetation, take a lot of vegetation and make this a big difference in the sound. So the trees really ultimately, they're both going to provide shade and provide space, a guide for that space, all the things there that the trees do. And so they're really a shade piece. You really want them to be tall and canopy to be fairly high to provide that shade, cast the shadows for other distance, but also so you can see under it, so you can see the business, so you can see the straightscape. For example, you wouldn't want to put a hedge, very high hedge, all the way around because it would be secure in terms of enclosing that space. So having a solid, it's good for security's sake. Anyway, so I see a plan that could include both sunshades initially and the trees, eventually would take over that hole right on the shade. So if the shades came as a part of the plan, then all the remediation happens and all the production continues so it's happening at the same time. But in the inner, maybe we need to pin that. So we don't have to excavate. Or maybe Miles would say that the amount of excavations here was very straightforward. If you've done with an auger, it could actually be done with a super sucker. I got to say that. Sure. I got to say that. So with the new super sucker, and it could be very discreet because the soil would be collected and could be taken to the facility because it really would do a great job of allowing that hole to be set. We've had good luck with that. Actually, other things, the village. So that might be doing that in the end. So see anything, you know, again, village way. I don't say that it's suggested here. It isn't impossible to do. Just it's a matter of making a decision as to what to do. Thank you, Rick. So, Bridget, do you have? I just wanted to say that in those planters, there are many people with some simple vegetation. These aren't going to be low flower planters. It's not going to provide much of the proper, but at least it's an initial screen for people sitting there and also for people driving. Thank you, Bridget. Thank you, Rick, as well. So just going to virtual zoom land. If there are questions from the public, questions, comments from the public on this, and I think I see Annie Cooper's hand up. Although I wonder, I see Robinson is up too. Maybe that is important from what Rick said, should I? Go ahead, Annie. Thank you, Bridget. George, Harlan, Elaine, Elise, E.J. or B. Brad. That's great. If Bridget and George and Harlan in your movements have those two steel bike racks could go the way that, from whence they came, they only briefly went where they are now to block some traffic. And they just really make the nice, colorful bike racks look terrible. So if we could use the planters to do the job and put those somewhere necessary, not there would be great. That wasn't what I was going to say, but I'm really excited about all that everyone has done. Thank you so much, Bob, Bridget and everyone. I wish that Miles was still here because I was really excited about when he said, these words are pristine property that has no limitations. That's very exciting to me. And if there's grant money for that, I would like to figure that out. So just as an exploratory conversation, but not as an actual hunting down, I would be intrigued to learn a little bit more about if that could be done. But that's just an exciting idea to me that I had not considered was possible until he said it. Secondarily, I agree with Raj that I think, well, I guess I've been swayed to not, but thank you, Raj, for speaking on that issue before. It was really, I felt very valued our community as a community member. George, thank you for the work you did with that outreach. I'm sorry I'm talking so much. The plan for the park that the community is giving feedback on is the design above ground. Right, so whatever happens with the soil, although I'm, again, I'm still excited about the whole pristine idea, so really excited about that. But whatever happens with the soil, the community feedback is about what's on top. And that's where, and quite frankly, I think your community is already forming itself and obviously very engaged and active. So thank you very much, everyone, for hearing us and for taking these steps that we have. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. Go, Ed, Robert. Yeah, just thinking about the polls for the sales and Rick talking, I think he was really talking about the moment of bending. You know, hard deeps all gonna be what sort of way it's gonna come from snow if they're still up there, they're gonna be taken down. What if a wind comes through, you'd have to work out the moment of bending on the poles so that nobody gets injured. And then when Dan was talking about, you know, how long do we wanna wait for shade? Well, there may be a way to have light poles, also be the poles that hold up the seal cloth in the interim for the trees mature and have a canopy that will give shade. And therefore the poles could do double duty. They could give tensile strength to the sails but also provide light in the park. It's just a thought. But it might be a way to get two for one in terms of the sails and light because I think we are gonna have light in the park although we haven't really talked about it. And also give us a way to get shade more instantly if we wanna have a better phrase. And then we have plenty of trees that are there to get to the point where they can do the job too. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you, Robin. So then coming back to the trustees here, we had a short-term request for things like placing the planters, picnic tables and sails, some way to anchor them. Personally, I don't see any harm in the plantings of picnic tables. They already exist, they're already here. They're just having staff go and put them out. Sounds fantastic to me. Anybody disagrees? I don't disagree, Andrew. I actually think that we might wanna designate a small amount of money from our penny on the tax rate Downtown Economic Development Capital Fund. It should be a better name for that but you know what I'm talking about. Maybe something like we authorize Brad and Wendy to up to $10,000 to help if they need flowers, if they need some assistance on doing that. I don't know if you have any need for the, if you identify any financial needs about that, or to make that all happen, but I'm gonna guess that somewhere along the line you might need that. So I'd like to just make that offer. I don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but I know they, the Downtown, we talked about it, and that's part of the Downtown of the meeting, but they have a certain pot of money for that, I mean for the city celebration. So I wouldn't wanna see money come out of that, but I think that we certainly have plenty of money in that fund in a little bit of money to help them that if something arises. So they don't have to wait until they have a, we have another meeting and then we put the funds, you could have Wendy and Brad have access to those funds. Yeah, I don't, I'm gonna feel like a party pooper. My understanding though is if we didn't warn something as a decision, then with open meeting, well we can't make a decision on it. Okay, well we could do it. So I think we could do it through the consent agenda at our next meeting in two weeks. That doesn't help with tomorrow. That doesn't help with a week from now. Okay. Yeah. I guess we could. We think so too. Yeah. Should be interesting. Right. I'm just afraid we're just, I'm just afraid so. Right. But yes, totally, totally here and don't disagree. Hang on, quick second Frigid. Yeah. There was also the, it's along those lines, I would say that that's where for sales and that kind of thing, I think that that would allow for some additional exploration as to how to actually do that in some way. Right. Help to try to figure out some kind of needed costs to then come back to us for that particular. Right. It sounds like that might be more longer term. And it sounds like the, and I really like what Rick said that you might be, you might in the design, the overall design, you might have it so that as the trees are growing and they're not gonna get a lot of shade for the first few years. They're not gonna do much. They're gonna be more needy than giving. And so you might wanna have it so you have shade sales in there and then slowly you transition away from them. So that would part of be, that would have to be incorporated into the design. And when those could happen, I think Frigid, you had mentioned to me that it looked like a pretty significant lead time, even if we knew exactly what we wanted and ordered them tomorrow, it would still be like a month and a half or something like that. And we don't know what we want. And so that's gonna probably add a little bit of time to it. So probably just the planters and the seeding and maybe a few other things like that at the time being the disposal of the bike rack, obviously. But yeah. In terms of Amber Raj, any concerns so far? Sorry, others. I have a Polaro for most of the TV so I'm not seeing, trying to be a pants up. Yeah, I just wanna make sure I understand it. There's a pretty large shortage of bike parking down there and if we make it more welcoming, we just, those bike racks are pulled out. Maybe they can go in the parking lot or someplace not too far away, but they certainly aren't a track where they are. But just wanna make sure I understood what was being brought up in that. Otherwise sounds great. Okay. So then for the longer term portion, one of the things that we'll definitely need to make sure that we define another point in time, just that the structures, the boundaries, both in terms of financial but also then in terms of the technical engineering side of things to make sure that what doesn't get created or recommended ends up being something that the whole path has to be redone again. And here we are, the exact same place we've already been at for months. Further flying, over here, where we are. If you don't like, if I don't wanna be the dominant, but if you don't mind, it sounded like we were almost there in terms of 20 cubic yards. I wrote that down, that that was an approximate. It sounds like we, that if Rick and Robin and maybe other staff could get together, maybe Harlan get together. And as I said, come up with those parameters that we could then give to a committee. But you give the committee the type parameters that they have to be working with. So they know what they're gonna do and they know when they're gonna do it and so forth. And maybe there could be that collaboration so that you come up with a document that gives us, we can pass on to a committee. What would be very helpful is to know what the budget is for the solar room. Because if you can give us a dollar, it's like working with Robin and Linus to find out what the current costs are and what the tax on that is. Right. All right. Rick's just bringing up, when you just said that the whole thing of 20 cubic yards or 25 cubic yards, whatever the cubic yardage is, what I heard from the discussion earlier, was that the cubic yardage, the cost is gonna be contaminated as well. We could pull 20 cubic yards out there and find, and the 20 cubic yards we pull out, only 10 are contaminated. So I mean, now we have room for taking more. Are you talking 20 cubic yards of contaminated soil or just 20 cubic yards of soil? That's a big difference. Yeah, yeah. And let me just say it's 20. Yeah, I know, it's arbitrary. You just do that number up. Yeah, don't say too much. 20 cubic yards is like a lot of soil. I'm talking about what it meant was the hard number so that we know this is not what we can say here in the program. Well, the thing is what we don't know is what we're gonna run to for contamination. Plan for the worst. Right. Plan for the worst, then if the cost are less, then you can put the infrastructure above it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I would suggest me, given the history of that site, in relation to another site directly across the street, which has contaminated soils and finally, I would plan for it. Yeah. So in terms of just planning for that dollar figure or breaking your estimation as what I would say as the expert in the room, we have in the memo of the 40 to $50,000 range as a worst case scenario. Do you think that that's a realistic worst case? So what I would say to that is, determine for the village or the city what amount of dollars you want to commit to that and then let us back solve it because again, the cost is going to vary. Disposal of soils is a commodity with so many other things and it's gonna vary. So I want to have been to one else experience to determine what's happening right now with the proposed disposal costs. So I think the best thing to do is say, we're willing to commit this much, much to remediate that site and then let us be creative to use that money the best way possible to get the best results through the committee in terms of what can be done. So and this is definitely a collaborative issue effort because like the three committee says, look, in an urban world, we'd like to see this over but could that be a bit less? There's negotiation to be done. And the same thing for the surface so we use a different surface, perhaps save some money and also less than the amount of material and then save some money too. So I would say figure out where you want to, where you stick a pin in that amount of the village is going to spend then let us use that best way possible to do the best work. Okay, just looking at funding sources and how to get to the issues we have. I looked at Burlington on Church Street. Church Street, if you go walk up down Church Street, there are pavers in the center street that people could buy. If it's certainly not money, you can put in memory of Sarah Brown or Jim Jutes or whoever, you can put money and then that money, just thinking outside the box here of ways to generate revenue that I think something made me look at. When there was a structure, brick wall, that's one of the things we were talking about was in the walls, perfect spot to do exactly. Like what was done before, that's a lie, right. But the same could be done on the surface, especially since flexibility now, it's not like the piles, what those surfaces could be. So, but we have $700,000 put into a fund for this for what the specifically these kind of places in the downtown redevelopment. We have $700,000. I'm just saying, George, we have that money, but if you can find a way to not use up the money, if there's another way you can generate it, I'd rather not just. Right, but coming up with, if we need, let's say we set a cap for the brick soil removal of $60,000, you're gonna have to sell a lot of bricks really fast to come up with 60 grand and that's what I'm saying. You know, they're gonna need a number. Oh, wait, we can. And none, none. I'm not saying we can't go from that route, you know, the money that we've got already on the fee and the tax that we set aside for that, but I'm just saying to supplement, to go along and when things are happening, you know, to generate things, because it's gonna be, the cost of maintaining this park is gonna go away. And if somebody wants, we find a way to get community, involvement, investment into this park beyond what they contribute through taxes, it'd be great. It just helps make it that much better because it's gonna evolve. As we've said, as trees grow, the sales may come down. Different things are gonna change over the years, so. Yeah, Brad, do you have your hand up? Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think, you know, it's a little tricky because we could look more into that grant. There's definitely a lot of state funding available. There is no limit on it. They awarded two different grants for 1.2 million and it appears that there's still 20 million left in the fund. So, you know, we kind of have to go out in both ways, we could set some parameters, but if we're able to obtain grant money, certainly our parameters may change if we know that it's money that we only have to match 10% of. And the other thing I was gonna suggest is, I think, you know, it seems to me like all of those curb cuts need to just be filled in at some point anyway. And I don't see a reason why we don't use that money now and just fill the curb cuts in. You know, some of those items have been placed there because there are still curb cuts and they could be inviting to vehicles. It seems to me like Ricky could get a quote on closing up those curb cuts and kind of be done with that piece. Seems like that needs to happen at some point inevitably. But I feel like we have enough information at this point to allow for us to proceed to develop a memo for next time, to come back for consensus on an amount to spend right now and get some quotes, look into grants, but at least start to take some action to do some short-term fixes for this summer. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Greg. Eddie, your hand, is that up all over from before? Sadly, it's not. I just wanna add while we're in the conversation that I think the two bicycles that are, the bike racks that look like bicycles, people love them and they're great photogenic opportunities and they do work as bike racks, but I don't think people understand the bike racks but whatever. I think they're dinged up. Am I right? Anybody been walking close enough to those? They look dinged up. If they're dinged up, can we replace them? They're not dinged up fine. And can we also add two more? And then can we make them separated? They're too close to the bench and it just looks at hazard. We've got the bench and the two fake bikes that are bike racks that are really nice and artistic looking that are also functional, but the bench and the bikes are just there. And if they could be separated and set accordingly to look really nice, that would really compliment what Bridget and them are doing. And if you had two benches and four of those bikes, it would look amazing. So I don't really care what happened so much as that it looked better than it does. And so with somebody who's involved in this can take a look at that aesthetically as well as look at the things and see if there's the possibility to add two more. And yes, Raj, I did mean to move the steel ones back where they were, which was simply on one side of the building a firebird and the other one was over in the parking lot. So they existed over there just not slammed where they are. And then, sorry, I just feel excited that something might happen and I wouldn't have said the things. And then, Timmis, oh, sorry, I said Timmis. We've heard a lot worse, it's okay. I appreciate that. Oh, and if we could, this sounds really rude of me and I didn't ask Harlan, but when somebody said end Harlan, if Harlan could be in those discussions, I would personally feel better because the questions he's asking and the enthusiasm he has and the interest he has and the knowledge he has about parks, if these discussions, if Harlan wanted to, and he could be in that as a resident, I would feel better. And I think that others would too. Okay, then I'm done. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Trustee, is anything else on this agenda item? Okay. So I look forward to this coming back. I mean, can you progress? Brigitte, Harlan, Brad, George, all of you who have been involved to this point, thank you so much. Appreciate what you've already done and we'll continue to break through you in there as well. Let's go to the next agenda item. Can't see what it is. So whatever it is, come on up. Utility rates, all right. Sorry, the next agenda item is more consider warring public hearings for the FY23 proposed utility rates. Jess, are you with us? I'm here. Oh, great. Do you, would you like to take this? So I have completed the calculations for all utility rates. We had a tri-pound meeting a couple of weeks ago as well. So they are ready to be presented overall. There are slight increases. And if you'll recall from when Sarah presented the budgets initially, the admin fee that happens between funds was quite high. So she had proposed to reduce that down to just see a moderate, a modest increase on all of the utility funds or utility rates, sorry for this coming fiscal year. So you'll see that, I believe the water rates are seeing the largest increase. So the fixed charge is increasing about 4.8%. The usage rate about 5%. And the other rates are anywhere from 2.5 to 3 or 4%. Brad, can you scroll down a little bit on that? I think overall, oh no, it's not in there. Okay, so the large user water rate that is assessed to global boundaries for their usage is increasing from 0.92 up to 11 cents per 1,000 gallons. And as I mentioned, Tritown meeting was a couple of weeks ago, we presented this and there was no question or concern on this rate increasing from $3.25 per 1,000 gallons up to $3.56 and a half cents per 1,000 gallons. And as far as the budgets, the actual enterprise fund budgets go, nothing has changed from when Sarah presented them and they were approved with the general fund budget as well. And I think I just add by policy, the trustee, that the trustees established over many years ago, you do have two public hearings on these. So that's what we're warning tonight. And then at those two public hearings on June 8th and 22nd, Jess will present all of that data and allow for a public question and comment. Sounds good. Trustees, if there are no comments, questions, concerns, I would entertain the motion that we have. The trustees warned the public hearings for June 8th and June 22nd regarding the proposed FY 23 to make it should only be one law here. I'll second it. You said June 8th, June 22nd. Yes. Okay. Seconding, any further discussion on those motions? Hearing none. All those favorably signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Ann, I'm saying thank you all. Jess, thank you for joining us and thank you for taking that effort on. Absolutely. And we now have the agenda edition of consider a 5e, consider the reduction in planning commission membership from seven to five. And this really, you know, this came on late as an addition due to an email from John Alden, the chair of the planning commission who expressed a dire interest in making this change. Your current capacity on the planning commission is seven and you currently have four members, which means all four people need to be present in order to create a forum, have a meeting and pass anything that obviously is challenging. If anybody's missing, they can't pass any business. Additionally, one of the members has contributions to some projects that are coming up for consideration and will need to recuse themselves, which means there's no possible way of obtaining a quorum or passing that business. I think this consideration is not just a short-term fix, but I think it's a long-term consideration the trustees should make of transforming that body into a five-member body. As you recall from last week's conversation, the zoning board of administration will become the DRB effective July 1st. There's only currently two members on that board and that minimum of the DRB will need to be five members at least. And so right now you have six people out of potentially 10 spots to fill if you had five PC and five DRB seats. So you don't even, if you at least split them up if they were interested, you would then have a quorum on each board, basically saying you're at a deficit at the moment in terms of citizen interest in these groups. And it's also coming at a time when there's talk of adding a downtown committee, a housing commission, an energy committee, potentially an equity committee and calling out for a lot more community voices. So I think it's valiant efforts to create those committees and engage citizens in such work, but you can probably save yourselves a little bit by reducing the maximum number of people on some of those groups. So it's up for you to consider tonight whether or not to reduce that PC from seven to five. That can just be a temporary measure. You haven't really set the PC for effective July one yet. So if you wanted to, and you weren't totally confident that that's where you wanna end up, you at least could do it for the time being and still make a change in the future. Thank you, Brad, for all the reasons that you mentioned. This is why I was okay with it coming onto the agenda as that walk on instead of trying to wait for our next meeting. And I think if the other thing that it allows for is if there are members of the current planning commission who do want to become a part of the DRB instead, this would allow them to do so as well without worrying about having a forum. Any other questions, concerns? I don't have concerns about it. I think it was five for many, many years and then we increased it to seven so we could increase the likelihood of having a forum and that's worked kind of okay, but here we are again. Right, yeah, here we are again at a point in time when we're, as Brad was saying, we're gonna have some other committees coming up as well and we're really gonna need some new people to step up. Can I, if you don't mind me, again, running off at the mouth, we had, and I wanna say, I was on the, if we look at the manager recruitment in the hiring committee, we had so many people show up, we had to break it into two. And I don't know who's in the audience and I don't know who is gonna be watching this on YouTube, but really, the Development Review Board and the Planning Commission are really, really key committees and I don't mean to create a hierarchy in my head, but for folks who came out and got involved a little bit in the management committee, the manager of search committees, if you liked it and you kind of got a taste of wanting to be involved in city government, being on the Planning Commission or the Development Review Board is like you are at the core, you're in the middle of where everything happens and it's, those are really, really critical and we two of our current soon to be city councilors have started out as planning commissioners. And I know on my committee, with the on the committee I've met with about the other recruitment committee, a lot of people had the idea that the manager is the strategic planner and the grand vision thinker and I had to sort of say, yeah, no, that's not actually the case. Our planning like most small communities in Vermont is done by the Planning Commission and that's really, that's the grand strategic, that's where the stuff, that stuff really happens. So if you are out there and you're listening and you wanna have a really good job and you really wanna get involved and pitch in here, please go to the Essex Junction website and consider signing up for the Planning Commission or our newly about soon to be created Development Review Board, thanks. Well said George. I wish we could just end the meeting at that time. No, we can't. All of the day. But yeah. Public service announced. Yeah. So I would entertain the motion that we have. I don't have the language here, but the I'll go ahead and I'll just, I'll move it. The trustees changed the membership of the Planning Commission from seven appointed members to five effective today, May 25th, 2022. Second. Thank you Dan. Any further discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor please signify by saying aye. Those both please say nay. Animously, thank you all. And that will bring us to the Consent Agenda. You approve the Consent Agenda? I'll second. Also, I think Amber definitely had the motion and I think Raj hasn't had a chance to second it. So we'll give that one to Raj. Yes. Yes. He's made some in it. Thought I was muted. Any further discussion? Great. Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those both please say nay. Great. Fascinating. Thank you. How about the reading file? And any board or staff comments? Seems like nothing in the room. Anybody in Zoomland? Seeing none, head saying no. So then I would entertain the motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Thank you all in favor of adjourning. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those both say nay. Fascinating. This is Lee and we're done folks. Thank you all for being here. Nice meeting.